The chiropractic art is generally concerned with adjusting misaligned body structures by manually manipulating the various joints in the human body. Of more specific interest in the art, however, is the spinal column which is comprised of a plurality of interconnected musculoskeletal structures or vertebrae. The human spine is susceptible to many different pathologic abnormalities including misalignment, miscellaneous trauma and pain, and degeneration as a result of age or disease. By employing various chiropractic physical therapy techniques, though, a chiropractor, or one skilled in the chiropractic art, may be able to successfully treat a physiologically abnormal spine. Such treatment often results in immediate relief of pain or discomfort that the patient might be suffering and can improve the overall quality of life of that patient.
Conventional spinal-adjustment techniques can involve the selective application of thrusts or forces to the afflicted and targeted region of the spine. Such conventional spinal-adjustment techniques can include “mobilizing” the spine (i.e., passively moving the spine with relatively slow cyclic or oscillatory motion), or “manipulating” the spine (i.e., applying an impulsive thrust or force in a well-defined direction to a specific region of the spine). Depending on professional affiliations, these techniques are referred to as chiropractic adjustment, osteopathic manipulation, orthopedic manual therapy, and/or spinal manipulative therapy. It is appreciated that such mechanical shockwave therapy is widely used in chiropractic practice.
It is known in the art that a shockwave differs from an acoustic wave in that an acoustic wave generally consists of periodic oscillation whereas a shockwave is a single pulse. In operation, the shockwave applied in a chiropractic context is a mechanical pressure pulse that expands as a half-sine wave within the human body. Further, the applied shockwave's propagation capabilities and tissue penetration depth depends on the energy of the shockwave and on the tissue damping effect. Viscoelastic damping of the shockwave is minimized at or around the natural frequency of the tissue. It is contemplated that high transmissibility can be achieved at tissue resonance while concurrently reducing the energy requirement of the shockwave generator and diminishing side effects caused by the overstimulation of surrounding tissue.
There are several well-known procedures or techniques for “manipulating” or administering impulsive thrusts to a spine. One technique involves applying one or more thumb thrusts to misaligned or afflicted vertebrae. The ideal force/time wave form for an individual thumb thrust approximates a half-sine wave. As one will appreciate however, thumb thrusts initiated by a human tend to be both imprecise in magnitude and location and tiresome to administer. Another technique involves using a manually operated chiropractic-adjusting instrument. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 4,116,235, issued to Fuhr et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,702,836; issued to Fuhr et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,379,375, issued to Fuhr et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,626,615; issued to Keller et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,656,017; issued to Keller et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 498,464, issued to Morgan, Jr., disclose such instruments.
Instrumented spinal manipulation, such as via the presently disclosed device has substantially overtaken the field of spinal manipulative therapy. Conventionally, these high velocity, low amplitude (HVLA) mechanical shockwave therapy devices are placed at the anatomic site of interest and triggered to deliver a force-time profile lower in amplitude, shorter in duration and with a faster force rate compared with a manually applied manipulation techniques. Throughout the years it has also been known that power driven mechanical shockwave therapy devices at times can offer benefits or advantages in use over the manually operated devices. Particularly, there is a current need for a compact, lightweight device that is portable and yet can be easily and repetitively apply a consistent desired impulse onto the patient at a desired location and direction without strength or fatigue issues compromising the treatment.
Electric solenoid operated adjusting instrument s such as ones described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,841,955 issued to Evans, U.S. Pat. No. 4,682,490, issued to Adelman, U.S. Pat. No. 7,144,417 issued to Colloca, et al., or U.S. Pat. No. 8,083,699 issued to Colloca, et al. can provide adjusting and controllability benefits over manual devices. However, to date such electric solenoid operated adjusting instruments have not been able to adequately reproduce the desired half sine wave form impulse.